Scrap metal recycling is known in the art. Production facilities produce waste metal which is typically stored at a production site, in containers owned and operated by a waste management company. The containers accumulate waste metal and when full, are exported to a remote site where the metal is recycled. Because of the volume of waste metal produced during industrial processes, it is common for persons with access to the containers to remove an amount of metal from a container and sell the removed metal for profit, while reporting a reduced weight to the production and waste management facilities. Therefore, a need exists for a system that prevents the removal of waste material from a production site, prior to and during the waste metal recycling process.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a waste monitoring system that monitors waste material as it is produced by a production company and stored at the production site. A further object of the invention is to provide a weighing system that measures the tare weight of a waste receptacle, monitors and records the increase in weight as material is disposed in the receptacle, transmits the data to auditing parties, and produces a report based on the weight data. Yet another object of the invention is to provide a monitoring system that provides an image of the receptacle while it is located in the production facility, which can be audited by authorized parties. These and other objects of the invention will become evident from the appended summary, description and claims.